Since his tweetstream was first discovered by Patrick Timmons (mngopwatch), Bluestem has been reporting on the flurry of new media coverage about Senate District 26 GOP-endorsed candidate Mike Parry posting and scrubbing potentially offensive posts; the best single place to check out the development of the story nationally is memeorandom.
Now the story has gone local in the Owatonna People's Press and the Waseca County News. Both papers are onwed by the same company, along with the Faribault Daily News, the other larger paper in the district.
Clair Kennedy reports in Parry’s tweets cause uproar:
District 26 Senate candidate Mike Parry is under fire for some messages that he allegedly posted on Twitter and has since “scrubbed.”
In one, the Republican contender allegedly referred to President Barack Obama as a “power hungry arrogant black man” and in another linked Democrats with pedophiles.
Parry’s Twitter account dates back to late 2008. Many posts recount day-to-day tidbits or idle musings: On April 26, 2009 Parry wrote “made spaghetti for 100 at Masonic Temple Friday nite what a blast.” On another day Parry wrote, “If Kodak stops making Kodachrome, does Paul Simon have to stop singing his song?”
However, bloggers at the Minnesota Progressive Project contend that Parry’s past posts were decidedly more controversial until the candidate erased 33 posts that might be perceived as offensive. As proof, they posted screenshots of two posts that have allegedly been removed from Parry’s Twitter feed.
While Kennedy's story only looks at the copy on the Minnesota Progressive Project and doesn't tell her readers about the statewideand national uproar, it's a fairly extensive story.
Most notably, Mike Parry finally answers questions about the uproar--and those answers are at best unsatisfying. He begins by saying he doesn't know anything about it:
When asked about the posts, Parry said that he had not seen MPP’s site nor heard about the allegations because he had been too busy.
He then moves to defend the posts (since deleted) about President Obama. Next he wavers about the tweet that equated Democrats and pedophiles:
Parry was vague about whether he was the author of the other post tying Democrats to pedophiles.
“I would think that’s wrong. If it’s on my account, I wouldn’t know how that one got on there,” he said initially.
When pressed, he said, “I don’t remember reading anything that would connect me making a statement like that.”
When asked if he had not posted it, Parry said “As I recollect, I would have to have read something that would have created me making a statement like that.”
He then dismisses the posts he knows nothing about as DFL spawned smears:
Parry then dismissed the matter as a Dem-directed smear campaign meant to distract voters from the real issues. It is unclear if the MPP is affiliated with the DFL, but the site has links to DFL opponent Jason Engbrecht’s campaign site, including ways to contribute to Engbrecht’s campaign.
“When people post through social media and are afraid to use their names it means nothing to me. Anything that I do has my name attached to it because I was raised that when you say something then you stand up for what you say and you’re held accountable for what you say,” Parry said. “I don’t hide behind the anonymity of having an Internet name. People need to know who I am."
That's pretty specific stuff coming from a man who had been too busy to know anything about the blog posts. Having watched the story material develop in real time on twitter, I know that the crowd-sourced research into Parry's twitter account began (as reported here) with Patrick Timmons (mngopwatch) noticing the Obama tweets; other tweeps went to Parry's twitter account and dug up their own pearls of Parry wisdom.
Led by the DFL? Hardily. The development of the material can be traced by anyone who searches @mikeparry on twitter. Readers may have to go back a ways to last week-- four to six days--but the search and discussion of the contents of the @mikeparry account is still accessible.
As for the bloggers at Minnesota Progressive Project, they mostly post under their real names; it's not difficult to learn the identity of those who use a screen name. Parry's complaint about anonymous bloggers rings hollow, especially coming in two newspapers where many readers post anonymously using screen names in the comment sections (the practice of commenting in locally called "blogging" by many readers of the two papers). The local custom is very tolerant of anonymity.
Parry also denies scrubbing his account:
[DFL communications diorecotr Kristin] Sosanie said it was especially hypocritical of Parry to say he’s not afraid of political correctness and then pull the posts down.
On this count, Parry pleaded ignorance.
“I wouldn’t know how to erase a tweet. I had a friend help me set it up and I know I can go to my cell phone and tweet,” Parry said.
When asked if someone had erased the posts on his behalf, Parry said there are people who know his password but otherwise he had “no clue.”
This, too, is curious. Does Parry control his tweets? If not, then who?
Supposedly there are 33 tweets that got scrubbed … three are well known but it would be interesting to know what the others are …. and were any of these scrubbed because he trashed Republicans ? I’m thinking that Dick Day had his detractors …. Where did Parry stand on the Day-v-Davis match-up ?
Take care.
Posted by: Minnesota Central | Jan 08, 2010 at 09:19 AM
Parry had not set up his twitter account in 2008 and everything I've seen and heard suggests that Parry and Day talked over Parry's plans for running for both the House and Senate.
Indeed, Parry tweeted about one of those meetings and the local paper reported that Day and Parry were talking about the former city council member's bid for legislative office.
Posted by: Sally Jo Sorensen | Jan 08, 2010 at 09:24 AM